Champion of Good Cheer

Published on May 04, 2017

Hannah Dunaway endured 44 surgeries by age 14, but she doesn't waste time dwelling on the inevitable 45th.

“It's one step closer to being cured,” Hannah said of procedures to remove multiple tumors - benign, but often very large - in her face and upper body caused by the rare disease cystic hygroma. “It hasn't really bothered me a lot. I get anxious the day of surgery, but I know it will be OK. Think positive, and it will be positive.”

Hannah is growing up in Vicksburg, but in her short lifetime she's undergone constant treatment and surgeries at Batson Children's Hospital, part of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, and at other children's hospitals across the nation. Her persevering spirit and upbeat attitude in the face of adversity makes her an excellent ambassador for Batson, and for that, she's been chosen as Mississippi's 2015 Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Champion.